Couple stands together as former Pontiac city council president heads to prison for bribery

Everett Seay and his wife Eirther Seay-Bey were staying close those last few days before the former Pontiac city councilman boarded a train Wednesday, Sept. 11 headed towards the federal prison in Morgantown near Charleston, West Virginia, where he is to serve 26 months on a federal bribery conviction.

In an interview with the couple the day before Seay boarded the train from the Pontiac Transportation Center, they shared how the situation has impacted their personal lives and his reputation after 24 years of service to the city.

Seay says he feels remorse for disappointing and hurting people who had trusted in him, especially his wife and family.

Seay-Bey still gets upset about the day their house was surrounded by officers that were there to arrest her husband. At the time, Seay was in the hospital after surgery on a broken neck sustained while teaching a grandchild how to use a trampoline.

“They surrounded our home and came to our door to arrest him and the grandbabies were getting ready for school. They didn’t need to come, he would have turned himself in,” Seay-Bey said.

Sentence details
Besides the 26 months in prison, Seay was sentenced to two years probation and ordered to make restitution of $10,800 by U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman after a plea deal with the government, in which other charges on the indictment were dropped against him.

According to the indictment, in 2008 Seay accepted a total of $25,000 to help “J.B.,” an undercover FBI agent posing as a businessman to win the city’s approval for the gold business. The agent said he indicated to Seay that he was a drug dealer and the business would launder drug money.

Seay also was indicted for assisting “J.B” in bringing in a shipment of cocaine and having it flown out of Oakland County International Airport.

However, the former councilman is adamant to this day that he did nothing to influence other council members’ votes on the 6-0 approval for the gold buying and selling business.

Wife hurt
Although Seay-Bey is critical of the FBI spending the time and resources to “create a scenario” to pull in her husband when so many people already are entrenched in criminal activity, she also is emphatic that Seay could have walked away at any time.

“I know this guy. He was a vulnerable person who fell into a scenario,” Seay-Bey said. “He’s not a criminal and he shouldn’t have been with criminals.

“They put him in a realm of folks he knows nothing about. He has no ‘street’ in him!” Seay-Bey said.
However, “He should have walked away,” she said.

“The community is appalled and I am hurt to the deepest part of me. Everyday I have to go for a walk,” just to get away and stay calm.

As difficult as it has been, Seay-Bey said, “I will never abandon him. I told him I will never leave him in a crisis.
“I love him,” said Seay-Bey, who married Seay in 2006 after they dated for 20 years and were brought together in their work to help people in the community.

One thing that has helped her is the support of the couple’s church, Prospect Street Missionary Baptist Church, and people in the community.

“People just love him,” and tell her about what he has done to help them, Seay-Bey said, trying to maintain her composure and wipe a tear from her eyes.

“We can’t go anywhere (without people coming up to us); People pray for him, even his enemies say they will pray for him,” she said.

Seay doesn’t forgive self
Seay doesn’t excuse himself, saying, even when there are shades of gray, “a man knows when he is doing wrong.

“I’ve been trained too well. You don’t live to be 61 and 62 to be stupid,” Seay said. “Too many people invested their time and love in me to play them like that.”

“Without the love of God and Bey and my family,” Seay said he doesn’t know how he would have survived a broken neck and facing prison time.

“I hardly wanted to live. You want to just disappear.

“When God got me through that ... and I was not paralyzed, I came out with a whole new thing: I messed up, but America is the king of second chances. There are people who know your heart.”